Table of Contents
Podcast Transcription
Announcer [00:00:02] Tired of the 9 to 5. Tired of only dreaming about the things you want to do. Want to have more time for your family. More time for you. More time for you. This is the Breakthrough Real Estate Investing podcast, where we interview qualified guests in the real estate industry all across Canada. We want you to live life on your terms, and we want to help you break through to that life through the power of real estate investing. This is the Breakthrough Real Estate Investing podcast. Now your hosts, Rob Break and Sandy MacKay.
Rob Break [00:02:03] Hello and welcome back again, everybody. Thanks for joining us again today. So glad you could be here with us. We’re excited to get back and share some more information with you today. And as usual, with me here again is Sandy MacKay. What’s going on? Sandy.
Sandy Mackay [00:02:19] Hey Rob, I am doing fantastic and excited for another show. Got lots of good stuff to talk about. It’s interesting. Real estate world right now. It’s really interesting.
Rob Break [00:02:30] Interesting is the right word for sure.
Sandy Mackay [00:02:33] Yeah.
Rob Break [00:02:34] It’s kind of it’s kind of slowed down.
Sandy Mackay [00:02:37] For sure. It’s slow down in in southern Ontario at least. You know, I reading all sorts of different articles around North America and I guess the rest of world that are pretty interesting and different is like everything. It’s always kind of neighborhood specific, right? And reading the generic stuff is kind of very minimally useful there. He’s got to look out a little more local and figure out what. You know, so everyone probably if they’re listening now and in early 2020 to hear spring 2022, we’re talking about the market being a little bit softer and slowing down, maybe going backwards in prices a little bit in some cases. And I could go find you probably 20 markets in southern Ontario right now that are actually up in price in the last month, if you really look at it. Right. So it’s and you can possibly find some that are down 20% or more.
Rob Break [00:03:27] Mm hmm. Yeah, it’s very interesting.
Sandy Mackay [00:03:29] And yeah. So lots of interesting things out there.
Rob Break [00:03:33] And I find that the strategy of holding offers is definitely still working. I think that that’s still the way to go for most sellers. Just because I’m finding, you know, at least in the Durham area, is you don’t get the traction if you’re if you try and play straight up, you know, try and list that what you what the seller actually wants. Right. So, you know, it seems to still be the way to do it.
Sandy Mackay [00:03:59] I know hands, everything like that. So and so many different things are there. There investors are definitely slowing down a bit. They’re trying to get a little more cautious from what we’re seeing. And yet, I mean, we’re talking them all the time around. The fact of it, maybe this is still the best time. Maybe it’s the best time that you’re going to see for years. You just never know. Right. And it’s hard to hard to sit around waiting for the quote unquote crash that might never come. And so that’s one of the things where we’re talking a lot of words. That’s my mindset, at least, is that we should be buying properties any time depending on like let’s it’s an absolute world ending crash or some sort that’s happening. We should be always actively looking a great deal. Great deal.
Rob Break [00:04:43] Sandy, I know people that have been waiting for the last six, seven years for the crash. So, yeah, it’s an it’s always definitely a good time to get into the market. And that’s why we’re here sharing more information of how people can do that. So everybody listening should go over to our website, break through REI podcast dot com. There they can download our free gift. All right, Cindy.
Sandy Mackay [00:05:05] Yeah, the ultimate strategy for building wealth through real estate. And they can also learn about everything else we got going on when they do that. So again in our excuse me, our email lists and learn about everything we got going on property interiors, seminars, webinars, whatever is happening, you’ll learn about it all through that and get that gift as you’re going to do that. We are revamping some things. I think in the next little while you’ll see some really cool, maybe even by the time this episode there you’ll see some cool new updates to our websites and some of our social platforms. So go follow us again. If you’re not already and check us out, you can find us on all over social media, YouTube and our website breakthrough already a podcast. That’s the like we mentioned.
Rob Break [00:05:45] Yeah, just Google Breakthrough ARIA podcast. Now we say this all the time, Sandy, and it is an absolutely free gift that we give away on our on our website. But, you know, we, we seldom talk about what it is that they’re actually going to get because some people might be going on. And I don’t know, I hear them say it all the time, but I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s not worth it. So I’m just not going to bother like, what are they going to get? What is it?
Sandy Mackay [00:06:10] It’s kind of the foundational piece to how we built a lot of our wealth and real estate. Right. I think that’s a lot of the strategy, the real fundamentals of what you have, what the strategies we’ve used for the most part to build out our portfolios. And I mean, it’s a great starting point. If you if it takes.
Rob Break [00:06:28] A lot into like how to add value and then use that to increase the value of your property and roll over into more purchases.
Sandy Mackay [00:06:39] Yeah, for sure. And we’re going to talk a lot about that on the show, actually. So it’s an it’s a great one to go pick up. If you’re listening in on this, maybe go grab it, pick it up and follow along as we talk through some of those similar points here on the show.
Rob Break [00:06:50] And then like Sandy mentioned, you’ll be able to keep up on all of our events and things that we have going on. And we’ve nailed down a date for our in conjunction with our REI. We’ve got our Costa Rica three day event that we’re going to have. And so the date for that is going to be November 18th, 19th and 20th of this year, 2022. I don’t have much more details other than the date right now. We’ve got the accommodations nailed down. It’s going to be right here in Potrero, where I am, and we’re going to be exploring the area and just seeing all the things that Costa Rica has to offer and of course, seeing some investment opportunities here, too.
Sandy Mackay [00:07:30] That’s super exciting. So that’s a big announcement. That’s awesome. What’s happening in Costa Rica. Like, can we do a little quick minute glimpse of what’s happening down there? Is there. Yeah, I.
Rob Break [00:07:39] Mean, the market’s on the rise, right? So it’s fairly dependent on what’s going on in US and Canada. But right now, things are definitely on the rise. We’ve seen increases depending on what you’re looking at. I mean, it’s so it’s still such and it’s still such a like Wild West, I guess, Wild South Market because it’s an. Not really like the prices aren’t based on anything other than what the seller wants to get.
Sandy Mackay [00:08:07] It’s not right and then wants.
Rob Break [00:08:08] To pay that. Then they can have the property. That’s really all it is. You know, and so I find know.
Sandy Mackay [00:08:14] Tell them. Is that right? There’s no homeless.
Rob Break [00:08:16] There isn’t right now to be maybe. Yeah. There’s a sort of a beta that they’re working on right now, but it’s a privately run. It’s privately run. It’s not. There’s a bunch of ins and outs that, you know, are just too much to talk about right now. But it’s not necessarily going to be in MLS in the same way as. As you have there. But it’s, I guess, going to be the next best thing. We’ll see. But right now, yeah, like I can’t.
Sandy Mackay [00:08:43] Call it.
Rob Break [00:08:44] A like if our guest call here is waiting patiently, if call is to say to me, Rob, I want three bedroom condos on the beach, I can’t just do an MLS prospect search like I would there for him and have him show up in his inbox every day. It’s just it’s a lot more searching and trying to find what the person wants to go into everybody’s like each individual brokers websites and finding what matches with what they want and sending it out to them that way. So there is definitely a lot more to it, but no on the rise. And I would say like, you know, if somebody sold for 300, then in like a certain complex, then the next person’s going to just say, I want 15% increase on whatever the last person sells for. Right. So but it’s definitely on the rise and now is the time to buy here because it’s beautiful, it’s sunny and yeah, it can’t be bad.
Sandy Mackay [00:09:37] Yeah. And yeah, there are all sorts of reasons why people might want to look there. So, I mean, I know you’re coming out with some more content around that in the near future too. So lots of cool things around. That’s for people.
Rob Break [00:09:50] Yeah. Like I don’t even have a website to go to yet. You can, you can listen to our new podcast break through to Costa Rica. It’s on all the platforms, you know, it’s on Spotify and iTunes and mean wherever you listen to it. We’ve got a couple episodes out now, but they’re full of good information.
Sandy Mackay [00:10:10] Cool.
Rob Break [00:10:12] Yeah. What?
Sandy Mackay [00:10:13] It was one that’s coming, I guess, in November. That’ll be exciting.
Rob Break [00:10:16] Mm hmm. Do you have any events to talk about? You’re always doing events.
Sandy Mackay [00:10:20] Mm hmm. Let me think. We do. Good question.
Rob Break [00:10:27] Sorry to put you on the spot like that, but you have an event every week. I guess it’s just you don’t know which ones coming up next.
Sandy Mackay [00:10:34] We’re debating we’re going to do some more investment related ones in the summer or rolling into the fall for sure. So we’re actually just planning a bit more around that, I should say. We do have one coming up that’s kind of exciting. That might be perfect timing for this one, which is in June. It’s gonna be June 15th. I’ll, I’ll have more info on that or you can find it if you reach out to me directly against Shirley Sherrod or just follow me on social media as you’ll see it in the very near future. But we’re doing an events on the 15th, all boats, Airbnbs and basically vacation home rentals and I’ve had to do that in some of the southern Ontario markets, cottage country Nagarajan. That’s where that sort of market and I’m sure we can do a whole we’ve got a guests coming in. We’re going to an evening for that. That’s going to be pretty interesting and something I’m looking forward to learning a lot more about. I haven’t dabbled into that space fully yet, although we have had some Airbnbs that haven’t really been purchased with that thought in mind from the from the from the beginning. And yeah, it’s an interesting market right now with that because ever since COVID started, obviously that market’s gone crazy. However, there’s a lot of there’s a lot of things people don’t know about that, just, for example, that people have not realized they might need to pay one day, things like that, that that people just aren’t aware of. And, and like, like every other market, it’s very niche and different markets have different rules and all that sort of thing. So we’re going to talk pretty in-depth on that. So that’ll be a cool one coming up June.
Rob Break [00:12:04] 15, on June 15th. Okay. Where can they find out more about it?
Sandy Mackay [00:12:08] Exactly. The question that I don’t know the answer to right now, like I just as long as they’re following me and on Instagram, Facebook, whatever, you’ll definitely see it soon. We can probably blasted out on our on our breakthrough page two and that comes up, which will be sometime before June 15th, probably if you’re listening to this, it might already be available. So go check it out.
Rob Break [00:12:28] Hopefully it’s on June 14th.
Sandy Mackay [00:12:31] Hopefully not.
Rob Break [00:12:32] Okay, great. Yeah. Well, that’s awesome. Yeah, I’m looking forward to that one, actually.
Sandy Mackay [00:12:39] Yeah.
Rob Break [00:12:40] So let’s get to our guest. We’re really excited to have Cole Hutchinson with us today and welcome. Thanks for joining us.
Cole Hutchinson [00:12:47] Yeah, I appreciate it. I’m happy I’m happy to be here for sure.
Sandy Mackay [00:12:53] Yeah. Welcome. We’ll get into your story, of course, more. But quickly, Cole grew up playing hockey like every great Canadian, moved around a lot and played in multiple different cities all across North America, ended up in some minor pro leagues in the U.S. and came back and then, you know, looked like you kind of got into real estate pretty quickly, kind of went down the electrical apprenticeship routes and working pretty hard. Probably through that. We’ll get into how you kind of parlayed from that into real estate, but you certainly have a contractor type backgrounds, probably pretty handy with things around the house. And then I started realizing that you should probably buy some of these places and start investing at the ripe age of 21, 22 early on. And yeah, we’ll talk a little bit more about your first deal with that look like and I know we focused on flips and bears primarily so getting into your journey with that and that was pretty cool starting out at that young age, you know, you’re well ahead of the average by at least ten years.
Rob Break [00:13:58] Yeah, most likely.
Sandy Mackay [00:13:59] Yeah. So, so yeah. And it’s pretty inspirational. I’m looking forward to learning more about how you got into this so well and tell us a little more about your background and how you ended up in real estate at such a young age.
Cole Hutchinson [00:14:13] Absolutely. So basically, I, I came back from the States after playing hockey down there. And, you know, it was it was kind of interesting playing down there because like you’re playing with a lot of people who are, you know, late twenties, early thirties, you know, like kind of still holding on to the dream, right? You know, maybe making it to the NHL one day and things like that. And I think I just realized that at an early age that I wanted to, you know, start making real money. You know, we were making a bit down. There wasn’t anything crazy, you know, start making real money. I decided to start playing hockey and come home. And I got into my electrical apprenticeship and it was kind of the same thing. Like, I really enjoyed it. I’ve always been like a hands on type of person, you know? I really like working a lot, you know, started working like 80 hour weeks, you know, any hours I could take, I was taking it. And I think that I was I was always interested in real estate at a young age. Like it was always kind of like cool to think about that other people could pay down your mortgage and things like that. Right? And I think everyone I knew, like even like the boss of the electrical company or, you know, every person that I knew of that was doing really, really well. They either invested in real estate or invested their money elsewhere, or they owned the companies that they were working for or they own the companies that they previously worked for and things like that. So I think I just really wanted to get started in real estate. Around 2021. But obviously that was really, really tough. I didn’t really have like t fours. I didn’t have like, you know, years of experience or income to qualify at the banks and stuff like that. So, you know, I tried probably like in 2015, early 2016 for a long time it was like a good year and just, you know, applying, applying at banks and, and talking to people. And even like my parents, the banks, everyone was telling me, just wait, you know, two, three years, you know, you’ll be 24, 25. You know, you’ll have worked four or five years and you have the income to purchase. Right. But I’ve just always been like I’m very like, if, if the things in my head, you know, I really try my messages, you know, really try to make it happen, right? So it was early 2016, I think it was in my first term of my apprenticeship. So, so pretty early, you know, as making really good money because of the hours I didn’t work like I was traveling around, you know, kind of to I was willing to go out of town, in town, work on holidays and everything. And I finally found a private lender to give me a mortgage in Oxbridge, which is where I currently still live, just north of Ajax in the Durham region. And I hadn’t done anything before like this, but my dad knew like quite a bit about houses and stuff and I completely tore everything out on the inside. It was a single family home on a 200 foot lot and I converted to a little duplex and part of me converted it to the whole duplex was I started listening to your guys podcast actually at the early I think it was early 2016. I think at that time you guys had like maybe 20 or 30 episodes out. And I started from the beginning and you know, I was listening to on the way to work. I’m at work like any time I could and I’m like, I’m going to do my first burn. And I had no idea how. But, you know, that’s kind of how I got started.
Sandy Mackay [00:17:47] Like every good Canadian is a girl playing hockey. And you listen to the breakthrough real estate investing. But I guess that’s the that’s the recipe for success for every Canadian.
Cole Hutchinson [00:17:56] Exactly.
Rob Break [00:17:57] And I’m a horrible Canadian because, like, I don’t even know. Somebody asked me the other day where to watch a hockey game and I had to think about it for a couple minutes. I never watch, but yeah, you can probably watch it here. No, that’s really interesting. And you know something I would like to I guess it was just the people that you were surrounded by that got this sort of idea into your head. But it takes, you know, a different kind of one year old or 18 year old or whatever to actually be interested in the fact that somebody owns strong business or somebody has a couple of houses. You know, other people might just be like, Oh, that’s cool. Where’s my beer?
Cole Hutchinson [00:18:39] Yeah.
Rob Break [00:18:42] Right. But so tell us a little bit about like why and how did you actually start to get interested in that?
Cole Hutchinson [00:18:51] Yeah, I think that’s a great question. Like, like, you know, like always just growing up, I just had like a strong work ethic. Like I think I started one to work at the age of like 12, 13, like in there. And my parents like know, like no one will hire you, you know, like, you just can’t get a job right now, right? So, like, I think, like, just like, always, like growing up to, like, at a young age, like, I’d be like, around knocking on doors and to cut grass like anything I could do to just make more money. And, like, I didn’t even know really why I wanted. I just wanted more money. I just wanted to make money on my own. Like I always wanted to be independent. Right. And I think just, you know, looking at these other people who, you know, the lives that they were living or the things they could do because they owned maybe these businesses or because they owned real estate. It just always like intrigued me. And then, you know, seeing, you know, other people working these jobs who didn’t really have that or were always frustrated after work or, you know, just waiting for Friday night or the weekend to be happy. You know, I think I just wanted to really change that and see how I could start with that other way.
Rob Break [00:19:59] Yeah. And then so the one point where you found yourself working like, you know, 70 hours a week, the light bulb, I guess kind of you went, okay, now I’ve learned how to work hard and it’s and this is not the life that I wanted to live. So you decided to transition. Tell us a little bit about that.
Cole Hutchinson [00:20:22] Exactly. So, you know, like I was starting, you know, I was coming home late like eight, nine, 10:00 every single night, leaving at five, you know, 435 and head back downtown to Toronto or, you know, way out in, you know, who knows where, right? And yeah, the money was good, but yeah, like, I really started to see, you know, I was tired. I wasn’t feeling really well, all right. Like I was kind of grumpy, you know, I wasn’t around the weekends, I wasn’t able to hang out with friends, all this stuff. And I was. This. You know, I’m like the recipe a better way to do this, right? And then I think that’s when I really started listening to like, you know, personal development stuff and like podcasts and like podcast was kind of early like at that stage too, I think 2015, 2016, I like heard a podcast and I’m like, I don’t really think I’m like a podcast personally. I can’t really like to listen to, you know, like long stuff like that. But then like driving on the DVP every single day for 2 hours or three or 4 hours every single day there and back I’m like, Hey, I can only listen to the radio so much. Like, let’s, let’s try it out. And I think your guys podcast was the first one I ever listened to. And now I just all the time, anytime in the car, I have to listen to a podcast, have to always be learning. And kind of growing. Right. So yeah.
Sandy Mackay [00:21:39] Yeah. It’s interesting. The, the, the, the, the changes that can happen in your mindset by just way you put into it and listen to and all the people around you can change really quickly. I think that’s probably what happened with you. I think that’s the age that we’re in, right where people are becoming entrepreneurs and making some big success stories really quick and early in life because person because of that the just the access to information and without.
Rob Break [00:22:01] Yeah, exactly. Especially now like if you’re in, maybe it’s not even real estate, you’re interested in something and you want to learn about it. Like most people are on the road a couple of hours a day and you can use that time to propel yourself into what you want to be doing. I think that’s really good.
Sandy Mackay [00:22:18] What are we talking about your first purchase then? Because you kind of went there pretty fast, but it was you took action on that, which is probably the hardest part. It’s usually one of the hardest parts is actually like you found a place, you said it was a 200 foot lot or something. You said it sounds like a great piece of property potentially. But what allowed you to get over that? First of all, had to find a private lender, which to me sounds like expensive money probably. So you had to convince yourself to maybe go through that process. How did that all happen and what allowed you to get confident enough to actually pull the trigger?
Cole Hutchinson [00:22:52] Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I was looking for a lender forever. A lenders were I had no idea about be lenders like and absolutely no like anyone who wants to get started, like the amount of people I’ve talked to that don’t know about being lenders and alternate types of lending is just it’s insane, right? Because I like I was there too. I had no idea. I just knew when my parents told me like TD Scotia, if they want to for you, like you have to wait, right? So just the more people I talked to, like I would start asking anyone like friends, family, you know, other people we knew who I knew owned businesses and money and stuff like that. And I finally found a private money that was able to give me the mortgage on a one year term. I promised myself, I’m going to get this done and I’ll have you your money back in a year. And anyway, so he told me, yes, okay, we can go up to a certain amount of money. So I started looking and my realtor called me in Uxbridge. She actually lived next door to my parents. And he called me and said, there’s a house, a couple of streets over. It’s like really rundown. There’s no pictures of the inside, but it’s a really good price. It was $450 at the time. And so and we scheduled the walk through and he called me 10 minutes before the walk through and he’s like, I don’t think we should go through this thing. I just went through it earlier today, and I think your parents will kill me, like if I take you through this and I’m like, No, no, I want to go. I want to go. So we went through with me, my dad and my mom, and we’re like, it’s perfect that there is water in the basement. Like, there is no kitchen. There was just absolutely like just terrible. Right? And we said, Yeah, it’s perfect. We’ll make an offer. We want unconditional, which obviously was my first time making an offer went unconditional, was super, super scared. I ended up getting the offer. It was owned by the bank at that time, so ended up getting it. And then yeah, I just went to work every single day after work, you know, I was there for one full year. I’m doing everything I could. Every spare time I had, I was there working, learning, right. My dad joined me every weekend. He wasn’t working. He was there kind of teaching me to I think at one point to in the first couple of months, I actually reached out to you. I’m not sure if you remember, you probably talked to so many people, but I was listening to you guys podcast for like probably the first 23 episodes I reached out to you. I’m like, This guy isn’t going to answer. Now this guy’s on a podcast and you talk to you and you answer. And I was just I remember being so grateful. Like, I’m like, how does a Refinance work? I’m like, how this, like, like, how do people pull their money? Where does that money come from? Like, I had no idea. I remember after talking to my parents, like, I can fix this place up, I’m going to do a duplex and I’m going to pull all my money back out. And they’re like, okay, like, who have you been talking to? Right. So anyways, long story short, I was able to do it, finished it in just under a year, had it refinanced, paid back that guy right at the one year mark. And then I got into a Deon and Deon was a person I heard on your guys podcast early on, reached out to Deon, I think. Rob, you recommended me to, to speak to him too, and that’s when he introduced me to a private lender because I couldn’t get a mortgage at the start for 450. How was I going to get a mortgage for the new appraised value to pull my money out? And, you know, he just made it like a walk in the park, one with the blender on a one year turn. And I think I’m almost refinance that house every single year with the same lender, you know, with Deon. Right. So it yeah, it was pretty good.
Sandy Mackay [00:26:34] Cool. And now you have you still have the property?
Cole Hutchinson [00:26:37] I do, yes. Yeah.
Sandy Mackay [00:26:39] Duplex. Renting what you think is worth it?
Cole Hutchinson [00:26:43] Yeah, I actually just had an appraiser. I’m refinancing one last time at the end of this month, and I’ll probably wait. So. Yeah. It was just appraised at 1.15.
Sandy Mackay [00:26:51] Nice.
Rob Break [00:26:53] So it doesn’t surprise me at all.
Cole Hutchinson [00:26:55] Yeah, that’s crazy up here.
Sandy Mackay [00:26:58] Yeah, that’s the taking action at that early stage. Just kind of works out is what you do. So what you’re saying is what?
Cole Hutchinson [00:27:03] Yeah, absolutely.
Sandy Mackay [00:27:04] Waiting around might not have been the might have not been the solution. Take it. Action and learning. I mean, even if it wasn’t a success, it was sounds like it was for the most part at least. Right. But, you.
Rob Break [00:27:16] Know, that’s probably a huge eye opener for your parents, too, wasn’t it? Like, what did they what did they think about that whole thing? Your first Refinance.
Cole Hutchinson [00:27:23] Yeah, it was crazy. Like, I remember, like, talking to my mom a lot of cause, like, she’s kind of like, more like, open to ideas. And so my dad’s, like, hardworking, right? Just had to work every day. Just work hard, you know? And he’d like, I couldn’t get a mortgage of this type. So he’s like, in his head, like, right away is like he’s not getting, he’s not getting more money, you know, like he’s putting the money in and he’s just going to have to wait another five years like everyone else. Right. But I remember talking to my mom. She was kind of telling him to like, no, I think he might be able to do it. Like he’s talking to this broker that says, I might be able to do it. And I think everyone had you know, we didn’t really believe it, even me. Right. Like when Deon said, yeah, yeah, I can get you all your money out in approved for this much and until it actually happened and I got the 160,000 140,000 back out you know they were like pretty take him back. And even then I’m like, wow, like how, like how like at his age, how is he able to do that? And then, yeah, it just kind of continued on from there. And I think every year that goes by, they’re just more, you know. You know, maybe taken back or, you know, and they’re starting to understand more. Right.
Rob Break [00:28:33] For sure. Yeah, that’s good. And so let’s continue the journey. What did you do after that? Because that’s a huge eye opener, like you said. And now you’ve got that money back in your hands. What happens next?
Cole Hutchinson [00:28:44] Yeah. So. So on that first project, I actually use, like a Home Depot project loan, like two or three credit card lines of credit, like anything I could to get to get that project done. It was just it was pretty stressful, pretty crazy. But yeah, I was finally able to pay off all those high interest loans and pay back the private lender. And now I had this high interest rate or decent interest rate, right. With a lender I house hacked. I moved into the basement. I got a tenant upstairs. My first tenant experience was pretty crazy too for the next couple of years, I guess in 2017, 2018, and I really focused on flips at that time, I just was really focused on getting through my apprenticeship as quickly as I could, because I see that when you get to the next term, you start making more money, right? So I wanted to continue to get through my friendship as quick as I could, which meant, you know, crazy amount of hours. I really focus the next couple of years on flipping between experts. Port Perry not making really anything like too, too crazy. But I didn’t know that I had a passion for, you know, work with my hands. You know, I could do all the electrical work, you know, pretty much like 90% of the work in the house other than like Windows Furnace, you know, a little bit of plumbing here and there. Like I pretty much do it all and I enjoyed it. So, you know, I spend my evenings doing that, you know, and then 2019, I guess it really hit me like, why am I flipping these? Like, you know, you just proved yourself that you can do it on your very first one. Why are you not holding on to these? Right. So I started doing more burners again, started getting, you know, into more buying homes, duplex conversions. They’re my absolute favorite, you know. And through those couple of years, too, I started, you know, through your guys podcast, everything to like, like I heard about like raising money in joint venture partnerships. And, you know, through those couple years I really started talking to other people, like having those conversations about trying to raise money, even though I knew nothing about it, it was just having those conversations and trying to see like what questions they would ask me, right? And what I needed to be more prepared for in order to get into a joint venture ship or into a joint venture partnership. Right. So 2019 yet back to the BR strategy started raising a little bit of capital and partnering up with people because I kind of found that, you know, a lot of people I talked to who were in partnerships, they would partner with working partners, but I found out like their working partners would just, you know, hire contractors. And I’m like, well, I can be the contractor, right? So like, like, I don’t want any money for doing the work, but, you know, I’ll have the house, but I’ll actually save us all money by doing all the work and like actually doing the work, right? So that’s kind of how I found my way into JVs, you know, started getting into some Airbnbs in Calgary the end of 2019 and yeah, it’s kind of continued to expand after that.
Rob Break [00:31:47] Yeah. And I think that that’s pretty interesting because a lot of people do have that idea that, well, I don’t know how to raise money or I don’t know how to do a joint venture partnership, but I know like people don’t obviously realize that they don’t know anything until they start to learn about it.
Sandy Mackay [00:32:03] And know what it was. Nobody was born into that knowing that.
Rob Break [00:32:06] Right, right, right.
Sandy Mackay [00:32:09] So you got to.
Rob Break [00:32:09] Learn one point. They learned the word joint venture. Yeah. Before that they didn’t know it. Yeah. Yeah, no, absolutely. And that’s really cool. That’s I love how you’ve grown over the years and.
Sandy Mackay [00:32:22] I think that’s one of the differentiators to starting out young is that is that you can I mean that’s an advantage over I don’t I’m not going to do the work in a joint venture arrangement currently like I might have I guess I did once. Yeah.
Rob Break [00:32:35] I have to.
Sandy Mackay [00:32:36] Have the best person for it. I know that.
Rob Break [00:32:39] Yeah. That’s the other thing right. Yeah. I could do it but you might not want me to.
Cole Hutchinson [00:32:44] Yeah.
Sandy Mackay [00:32:46] But you can, you can like, you know, someone if we were, if we were, which there’s so much money out there, this is fairly unrealistic. But if we were competing over the same partner, I mean, you have a leg up on in that in that sense that you can do the work and you can be the one there hands on day to day, which saves the partnership money. Ultimately, it makes it makes it can make it a better deal. It might not be the best for scale, for scalability, but at least in the early going, I mean.
Rob Break [00:33:11] Yeah.
Sandy Mackay [00:33:12] Early days.
Rob Break [00:33:13] I’m willing to bet that now you don’t need to sweeten the pot like that.
Cole Hutchinson [00:33:17] Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, it was it was kind of at the very start. And like, I’m not taking away from like, anyone who does joint venture partnerships because I know the value that people bring and I know that they have them. Is in place and they have the experience. And just like everything that we know that comes along with real estate, you start to finish right by it. You’re just yeah way that I found okay to get started from the first year to build a track record with joint ventures, I can actually do the work, but you know, if you ever want to have, you know, three forms go at once. Obviously I can’t I can’t promise several are not going to be there doing all the work right but yeah, it’s it for sure helped at the start.
Rob Break [00:33:54] So on that one, were you were you still getting home at like 8:00 at night and then going over there? Is that what you were doing.
Cole Hutchinson [00:34:01] For like the joint venture one?
Rob Break [00:34:03] Yeah.
Cole Hutchinson [00:34:04] Yeah. So like towards 2019 was, you know, when I started, I think by then 2016, yeah. By then I was in the end of my third term or early fourth term. So I was making like really good money. Like I always said, if, if I just make it to my fourth term, then it’s like you’re making better money each year now, right? So I started to scale back a little bit at work and work a lot less. And in 2019 is when I really started to try to focus more on real estate.
Rob Break [00:35:07] So they weren’t like, Oh, we had this guy that used to like, give me all the hours you can. He is working 70 hours now. He’s like, Well, I, I guess I can do 40 for this week maybe. Let’s go back to 40 next.
Cole Hutchinson [00:35:19] Yeah. Off at 230. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Sandy Mackay [00:35:25] Cool. Wow. So what were some I mean, you’ve touched on some. Is there any other big challenges they had that we didn’t cover? They’re starting out or they’ve had over the years. What were some of the key challenges along the way?
Cole Hutchinson [00:35:37] Yeah, I think I think one of the biggest couple challenges was just people saying you’re too young and it’s like just having a strong, you know, to overcome that and just having a strong mindset and saying no, like in your own head, right? Like being like, no, I’m, I will find a way no matter what anyone else tells me, right? Like, thank you for your opinion, but I’ll go find a way to do it right? Like, it almost motivated me more when people told me, you got to wait two or three years because I’m like, okay, well, I’m going to go get one this year. And then and then I think I think two is just, you know, just being around people that, you know, would be negative around it. Right? Or like you’re making a bad decision or like, why are you using credit cards? Why are you using lines of credit? Right. And it’s just it really helped you listening to your guys podcast or listening to other real estate investors talk around how they were able to do it and kind of just reinsure myself like, okay, I think I’m on the right track. But, you know, it would it really help to have someone, a couple of people like just personally to, you know, really be confident with that? Right.
Sandy Mackay [00:36:45] But I think it is well, you know, people could argue against or for using credit cards, using high interest loans, etc.. Certainly when you’re 21 or so, like, yeah, it’s risky still. But I mean, what’s the worst case? Worst case, you end up where you already are kind of thing, right? Like, you know, maybe you lost ten grand or 20 grand, maybe worst case, but. You can like any time in life, you’re going to kind of play that risk. And that’s a time, right early on when you don’t have much for responsibilities yet you don’t have a lot of other people depending on you and that sort of thing. I mean, that’s certainly a reason to start earlier as well as just, you know, there’s a lot less loose.
Rob Break [00:37:29] And I think you make a good point. I think you make a good point about, you know, people if the when you’re sort of still impressionable and especially when it’s somebody talking to you that you respect and they don’t understand what you’re doing, they will try to give you the best advice that’s worked for them. And they’re not out to hurt you, but they’re like, this is what I know. I know you don’t go just doing renovations on a credit card. You just don’t do that right. Like that. So and that can be pretty damaging at some points if the wrong if the wrong or right or that person that you respect, you know, gives you information contrary to what you’re doing and you go, oh, man, maybe I am making the wrong maybe I shouldn’t be doing this. And that can, that can really send you off on a different track. So I think it is important, like you said to you go you went back and started going, okay, am I doing the right thing? Let’s hear some other people that have been doing this like you can you can find all kinds of examples even on this show. Like I think I remember early on Julie Broad when she was on saying that when they started they were just like maxing out credit cards left, right, center to get their rounds done. Then lots of people have done that. So yeah, it is interesting. Now I do think that you’ve got to filter what you let it for sure.
Cole Hutchinson [00:38:57] Right. Right, absolutely.
Rob Break [00:39:02] Okay. So you have a program or like something set up to help other investors. Tell us a little bit about that.
Cole Hutchinson [00:39:11] Yeah, absolutely. So it was it was in 2020, early 2020. It was kind of at the beginning of the pandemic, you know. But I wasn’t like a lot of other people were like maybe they lost their job and they had to figure out another way to keep going. Right. Like I, we, we had a ton of work at the University of Toronto hospitals, everything. Like I couldn’t continue to work crazy hours, but it was more at the end of 2020 when I realized, like, I want to focus more on real estate. I want to do this full time. You know, I was pretty much at the end of my apprenticeship, I had all my hours. I just had to go, right? So I told my boss, I’m going to take like a month or two up. And Amy says, that was like a whole other thing. And my parents, you know, I told them, you know, we were slow at work, right? I said, you know, we’re slow at work. You know, I’m going to take some time off. And that’s when I really started focus on real estate investing, you know, kind of starting to be more aggressive with it. And I really realized that I had a passion for helping people like over those last two or three years leading up to 2020, I was helping friends and family to, you know, teaching them everything I learned. And I really found that there was a lot of people like myself in 2016, like when I first got started that didn’t know anything. And like I would have loved to have one person to just go and talk to or, you know, have a call with every single week to like, know, like Emily buying the right property or, you know, is it okay to use a credit card or is it okay to do a private loan that my parents are telling me not to do? So, you know, I started kind of testing the waters, you know, coaching and mentoring people individually, right? You know, spending time with them every single week, you know, always being available to them. So that’s kind of where that started early 2020. And now it’s turned more into, you know, a growing and big likeminded community where, you know, the majority of people are beginner investors who just need, you know, that help to get started. They need to know how to get into real estate. I need to know that they’re doing it the right way and that they can continue to grow in scale after that first one. And they don’t make a mistake early on because like you said, Rob, it can be a big, you know, like it could play a big role in not being able to move on or maybe getting scared of real estate in the beginning and then not continuing in it. Right. So, you know, it’s basically just being there for those people, you know, coaching, coaching and mentoring them individually every single week and making sure that they’re able to grow in scale.
Rob Break [00:41:41] Or you even mentioned earlier on that your first tenant experience wasn’t great. Like, you know, I know there’s a story there, but so that kind of thing can really help. You know, there’s a lot of people that just don’t get into this because of the whole tenant idea. And then the ones that do, if they had bad experiences at the beginning, sometimes that can lead them to just say, okay, forget it, I’m out. But with a community like this, I think it’s super. Important because everybody’s had at least everyone that’s actually active in real estate has had issues. Right, that they’ve got to overcome. You can decide to quit and then it will definitely go away. But it’s not like that same issue is going to happen over and over and over again. There’s going to be different ones. Right. And so when you conquer that one, there is going to be another one. And in the community like this, there is often many people who have seen sort of a similar thing, you know, through it.
Cole Hutchinson [00:42:42] Right. Absolutely.
Sandy Mackay [00:42:43] Where do people go to check out and learn more about that? What’s the what’s the best site or link for them to connect with?
Cole Hutchinson [00:42:50] Yeah, I would say Hutchinson Real Estate Investing.com is my website or everyone can check out the free Facebook group on Facebook. Obviously it’s called the breakaway from the 9 to 5 with 4 hours or so because I love the branded break.
Sandy Mackay [00:43:07] But there’s a bunch of hours. I was going to clarify. Goody. Got it for you.
Cole Hutchinson [00:43:11] Yes, that’s fine. The best spot.
Rob Break [00:43:14] Is there for hours are three. At four, there’s 4 hours. What what’s the what’s the last hour for Europe?
Cole Hutchinson [00:43:22] Yeah. I always went back and forth this year.
Rob Break [00:43:25] 4000. Wait a minute. Okay.
Sandy Mackay [00:43:31] You got to. We got our hours on there. We could add more.
Cole Hutchinson [00:43:35] Yeah, a couple more hours.
Rob Break [00:43:38] Repeat, repeat again.
Sandy Mackay [00:43:40] Yeah, exactly. Now that’s typical. I think a lot of people sort of check that out and go learn more about what you’re doing and connect with you and others in that group is for all the reasons Rob said. There’s so many ads go that the pandemic kind of has helped with a lot of these sort of things. But there’s a lot of industries where it’s kind of, you know, obviously made people reach out to find a way, other ways to connect. And you built out something there to help with that. So that’s cool.
Cole Hutchinson [00:44:10] Yeah.
Sandy Mackay [00:44:11] It also helped people want to want to from that. Right. Do you do you take on some coaching clients and support them through? Is it usually are they usually scaling up or are they doing their first BR or flip type project or what’s that usually look like?
Cole Hutchinson [00:44:24] Yeah, absolutely. So basically people will come in, right? I help people across Canada. We have quite a few. Like obviously the majority of clients are here in Ontario. A lot of clients are like Calgary, Edmonton, Saskatchewan as well. You know, people will come in, I’ll coach them every week, you know, for as long as they need it. Right. Like a couple of things I’m trying to do different than like other coaching programs or group coaching programs is always have that kind of individual coaching that that people need, right? Because everyone moves at their own pace. Everyone has their own questions. Everyone, you know, people don’t like to ask questions in front of others. Right? So I really feel that people need like the individual coaching, you know, and I don’t put a timeline on it because if I’m doing my job, I’m getting people, you know, confident one day enough to go out and do it on their own, right? So I always want to have them a part of the community, always be able to give back and help others. Clients just starting a joint venture with each other. You know, we do like group calls every single weekend as well with like the whole group, you know, so everyone can ask questions from each other too. So it’s just kind of helping them start to finish on their journey, whether that is their first. BR You know. BR Number two, three, four for the first two or three flips, how long it takes to get them confident enough to, you know, obviously they need a lot less of my help. Right.
Sandy Mackay [00:45:42] And get them in action basically.
Cole Hutchinson [00:45:43] Right, exactly. All accountable.
Sandy Mackay [00:45:46] Cool. What else are you doing for the future? What? What are you investing in yourself? Are you helping others? Are you doing a combo of that or what’s on the horizon?
Cole Hutchinson [00:45:55] Yeah, I think I think a combination of that, you know, I don’t think I’m ever going to leave, you know, trying to help other people, you know, whether that’s, you know, coaching, mentoring and things like that. I really enjoy that. I love seeing people, you know, scared like I was, too, just absolutely crushing and change in our life. Right. So I love that. Obviously this year I’m really starting to focus more now that I’ve kind of built up the coaching program, tested that out and stuff to start investing more myself, a lot more joint ventures, starting to get a little bit, starting to look more into multifamily. Airbnbs we did Airbnb arbitrage for two years in Calgary and we manage them all from here. Now that we’ve tested the market, they’re seeing what units perform the best and stuff like that. We’re going to actually buy a couple of those units. So, you know, we’re working towards that too, which will be super, super cool. So just basically, you know, looking at all opportunities, trying to help as many people as I can and, you know, just kind of continue on.
Sandy Mackay [00:46:55] Airbnb arbitrage. We’ve talked, I believe we have talked about on this show, but just mentioned what that is because you threw out a kind of a buzzword there that maybe some people aren’t familiar with.
Cole Hutchinson [00:47:04] Yeah. Yeah. So Airbnb arbitrage is like, you know, for example, if, if a person wants to get into Airbnb or real estate, it’s, it’s kind of a cool way to get started but not have to actually buy a property, right. So pretty much the only startup cost to Airbnb arbitrage is your first and last month’s rent, right? It’s basically when you go and rent a house or rent a condo or rent a unit from a landlord and just like a long term tenant would. And then you then go and Airbnb that unit out, right. So you pay them a fixed amount each month so you know, call it two grand and then you might go make three grand or four grand of that unit each month and then you just have to manage it some like that. But it’s a cool way to get started kind of, and get the experience of managing units, you know, speaking with tenants, you know, making some pretty good income too. But again, like you guys said at the beginning of this show, we really just have to look into the rules and regulations, you know, wherever you’re going to do this.
Rob Break [00:48:05] Yeah. And obviously make sure that it’s in your contract and that everything’s on the up and up, right?
Cole Hutchinson [00:48:11] Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Always, always make sure to tell your landlord that you intend to do that for sure.
Rob Break [00:48:17] Well, so I just wanted to ask you, what’s a piece of information or advice that’s always stuck with you? We’re sort of big on that, this episode, I think.
Cole Hutchinson [00:48:27] Yeah. So I would say, you know, to not give up, you know, like, I just there’s always the people that, like, we kind of mentioned before in your ear saying, no, don’t do like this, don’t do like that. But then there’s the other side of things. If you if you expose yourself to it right through podcast, though, you know, building your network, through likeminded individuals, there’s always that half of the people who say, keep going, you can do it. You know, we’ve all been where you are. We’ve made it through, right? So I think it just would be don’t give up. And if you get told no. You know, from a bank or a lender or, you know, a joint venture partner, just don’t give up. Right? Just keep going. If you have to talk to 20 joint venture partners before you get one, you will get one. Right. Or if you have to talk to 30 different lenders before getting a loan, you will get one. Right. There is always a way. That’s why I like to tell my clients a lot is that, you know, it’s just it’s not a matter of, you know, if there’s a way, it’s just a matter of right. We just have to find that way.
Sandy Mackay [00:49:29] It’s always funny how many how quickly people give up on lots of things in life, right? Like, you know, you’re good. How may I make doing interest every time? Oh, I can’t raise any money. That’s too hard. Okay, well, how many people you talk to? You like three, three, four? Yes, I will talk to a 30 or 40. Like you’re going to find it scary. It’s almost guaranteed. Basically, it is like in in those scenarios or you’re talking about it. I would go as far as saying it is guaranteed. You just have to talk to the right person on the right there, the right time. You just need to have more conversations. Really doable. Yeah. Yeah. Good advice. Tough to tough at times to really never give up on these things. And, you know, the people that that don’t give up and power through those situations are the ones that end up finding success the other day and ended up buying properties at 21 and making some cool changes to their, their wealth and there, you know, their path in life. It can change pretty fast because if I correct that wrong, you are you were you kind of threw aside the electrical thing and yeah it’s been a couple of years now since you’ve been involved in that.
Cole Hutchinson [00:50:38] Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And leading up to when I left, like I would always tell people that last year that I work with every day and like I’m leaving and people would be like, you got 40 more years until you can retire. And I’m like, I’m leaving this year and.
Sandy Mackay [00:50:52] They think you’re crazy. I’m sure.
Cole Hutchinson [00:50:55] For sure. For sure. So yeah, it’s been good.
Rob Break [00:50:59] Yeah. I do think that one thing that we’ve seen over the years is when we ask the challenges, typically it’s mindset and really like that financial piece is probably one of the biggest challenges that we hear about, right? So yeah, definitely.
Cole Hutchinson [00:51:16] If, if, if, if, if it’s more, you know, the mindset, we can fix that, right? We can start learning to be learning every single day, take advantage of those drives as a way that but if it’s like financial and then people just like, you know, it’s very important and like I heard it a lot early on to like to give if you don’t have the financial piece when you want to get started, there’s other ways to get started. You just have to find a way to just bring value to a person who has the capital. Right? Like it’s all about just trying to figure out ways to, you know, okay, he or she has capital. How do I bring value to them to put their money to work? Or like, how do I present it in a way to them that, you know, they’re going to be making a better return with me. Right. So I think that that’s a. You know, a big piece of advice, too, is just find a way to speak to people, find a way to present it in ways that you come across as valuable.
Sandy Mackay [00:52:05] Absolutely. Absolutely. That’s good. Well, I.
Rob Break [00:52:07] Suggest that everyone listening, everybody reach out to call, have a conversation and, you know, get some of his insights and some of his positive attitude here, because I think it’s really going to be helpful for anyone that wants to do that call. How would they go about it?
Cole Hutchinson [00:52:25] Yeah, either on Facebook or Instagram at the break away from the 9 to 5. Or my email is Hutchinson Dot Contracting Outlook.com, and I can give you my phone number too. I’m always available to talk. I always like to talk to anyone who wants to talk about real estate.
Rob Break [00:52:42] So that’s awesome. Thanks for sharing with us today, man.
Cole Hutchinson [00:52:45] Absolutely.
Rob Break [00:52:46] I really appreciate you coming on.
Cole Hutchinson [00:52:48] Yeah. Yeah, I really appreciate it. It was fun.
Rob Break [00:52:50] Sandy, how can people get in touch with you?
Sandy Mackay [00:52:53] Easiest way is San Diego Freedom Reps, Rep’s Freedom, RTP, ESPN.com. Or they can just look me up on Instagram, Facebook and text that with you.
Rob Break [00:53:05] Yeah. And people can reach me at Rob. Mr. Breakthrough. Okay. Thanks for joining guys. We’ll see you next time.
Sandy Mackay [00:53:11] Yeah.
Announcer [00:53:12] You’ve been listening to the Breakthrough Real Estate Investing podcast. We hope you’ve gotten some useful and practical information from the show, and we hope you’ve been inspired to take control and live life on your terms. We’ll be back soon. But in the meantime, make sure to like, rate and review the show. And don’t forget to subscribe and listen on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. See you next time.